Who is our constituency? Human beings are our constituency! Sure, we could spend a lot of time talking about which subset of human beings is likely to be most sympathetic to libertarianism. That's been done, and the results are never conclusive, because human behavior isn't as cut and dried as scientific phenomena. If they had been, we would have heard about it. And while we were talking, we could have just done some kind of outreach to a random group of people that would have had a better chance of finding new libertarians than all our talking.
I am not opposed to bringing critical thinking to bear on our endeavors. But let's make the thinking and analysis secondary to the endeavors themselves, not the other way around. The first "who" we have to deal with is not "who" to outreach to, but "who" is going to do the outreach, how will they do it, and how will we support them! We can sit around for hours talking about what kind of cake would taste best at our party and still be nearly as uncertain at the end of the day with nothing to show for it, so instead of doing a bunch of research and speculation on the merits of chocolate versus carrot versus vanilla, let's just take a vote on which flavor to make, put on our aprons and start cooking. We'll always have time to bake more cakes tomorrow if we plunge right in and do it without spending hours debating the proper oven settings!
I ask again,
> What has been happening with our ballot initiative efforts? Most
> recently I recall seeing a proposal to support a decriminalization
> initiative by the Sex Workers Outreach Project in SF, or come up
> with our own.
Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>
Dear Everyone;
Based on my own personal experience I have to ask the following.
Who in San Francisco knows there is such a thing as the Libertarian Party? I found the Libertarian Party by total accident. If I had known there was such a party and what it stood for I would have been a registered Libertarian voter 15 years ago!
So personally I believe you need to ask what can be done to define who a potential Libertarian may be and how do you let them know there is a Libertarian Party and what it stands for? This way you can start to define a constituency. Then once you have defined the constituency then you can create activities to attract their attention to introduce them, to the Libertarian Party.
Based on my background which involves various sorts of sales marketing and advertising what you have is a niche market to go after. How do you go after this niche market - where is it located - what will attract it's attention? etc etc etc
Ron Getty
SF LibertarianAnd our constituency is?? Starchild, you know that I totally agree
with your principle of doing rather than talking. The proposed
discussion got on the agenda as a result of my noticing that EBL has
an annual strategy/planning meeting, Rich Newell suggested the topic
of constituency-based outreach (vs. issues-based outreach), and
Michael Edelstein thought a 15 minute discussion might be worthwhile
(which I agree). So, if you come up with an activity, we will do it
during the Activity slot in the agenda (how about writing down some
spots to film for our upcoming Public Access TV series, "A Walk Down
the Streets of a Once Free City.") But I would like to see what
happens when we ask ourselves "Who is our constituency, if anybody?"Marcy
> Marcy,
>
> Rather than "discussing and formulating guidelines on who we
are as a
> group, what is our constituency, how do we reach our constituency,"
I'd
> like to suggest that we could spend our time more productively by
> actually doing something, such as actually trying to reach our
> constituency.
>
> What has been happening with our ballot initiative efforts?
Most
> recently I recall seeing a proposal to support a decriminalization
> initiative by the Sex Workers Outreach Project in SF, or come up
with
> our own.
>
> Yours in liberty,
> <<< Starchild >>>
>
> > I would like to once again agree with Don on the matter of unity
in
> > the LP against government intrusion in our private lives. And
since
> > we are on the general subject of what might be appropriate
> > response/action by LPSF, as a group, to the current political
> > landscape, I would also like to invite everybody to come the the
next
> > LPSF monthly meeting on July 9 (Round Table Pizza on 16th Ave and
> > Geary, room upstairs, 3:00 pm), when we will be discussing and
> > formulating guidelines on who we are as a group, what is our
> > constituency, how do we reach our constituency.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Marcy
> >
> >>
> >> LPSF,
> >>
> >> If Doug Newman is a bigot as some people claim, I wish America
had
> > more
> >> bigots like Doug Newman and less prohibitionists like Supreme
> > Court Justice Ruth
> >> Bader-Ginsburg, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris
and
> > President
> >> George W. Bush.
> >>
> >> Ginsburg, Harris and Bush have long lists of people and things
> > that make
> >> their "unbigoted" Progressive and Neo-conservative, Religious-
> > rightist stomachs
> >> do 360's. Instead of minding their own business and leaving
> > peaceful people
> >> and private property alone, they advocate and use the
> > unconstitutional force
> >> of government to kill, destroy and incarcerate peaceful people
and
> > private
> >> property they do not like. They, and their diverse group of
> > supporters, all
> >> agree: No matter the problem (real or imagined), the solution is
> > always more
> >> government. Doug Newman is a critic of that common, Statist mode
> > of thinking and
> >> destructive, unconstitutional form of government.
> >>
> >> To agree or disagree with Doug Newman's strongly stated dislike
of
> > the gay
> >> lifestyle is to be petty and miss, or deny, his point. That point
> > being: To
> >> take a stance on a controversial issue is of little or no
> > importance compared
> >> to, as a matter of principal, disapproval of government
regulation
> > and
> >> involvement with issues of any type, including controversial
> > issues. Doug Newman's
> >> point to the Religious-Right is this: The only way to get
> > government out of
> >> your affairs is to also advocate getting government out of the
> > affairs of people
> >> outside your group, including the lives of peaceful people that
> > make your
> >> stomach's do 360's.
> >>
> >> No group of people, including Libertarians, will ever be in
> > unanimous
> >> agreement on any issue, therefore, it is far more important and
> > unifying for
> >> Libertarians to stand united on principal against government
> > regulation and
> >> involvement in peaceful people's affairs. Because Doug Newman
> > promotes the idea of
> >> across-the-board, less government (therefore more freedom), I
> > welcome Doug
> >> Newman to the Libertarian Party.
> >>
> >> All the best,
> >>
> >> Don Fields
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
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